


Becoming Dolores

by Repeatinglitanies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, F/M, I do not condone of the relationship in this AU, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21545575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repeatinglitanies/pseuds/Repeatinglitanies
Summary: When someone has spent life in the apocalypse in isolation, one becomes welcome to the thought of company. Anyone's will do.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109





	Becoming Dolores

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a dark fic. Please be warned.

When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a city covered in ash and ruins. Her grumbling stomach urged her to find something to eat. Her fair skin and once pristine white suit was covered in dust and soot. And it told her that she had to get clean, find a bath or a washing machine though both at the same time would be even better.

The realization that her throat was dry, which was then followed by a series of dry coughs indicated she needed to find water, the type that could be safely consumed without fear of getting sick from bacteria and other poisons that may infect non-potable water.

But from the looks of things, neither food nor water nor cleansing materials would be easy to source.

She needed to find other people. She knew that a city had to have millions of residents inhabiting it. It would also come with a hospital for the sick and injured, a market to buy and sell necessities, a police station manned by officers to keep the peace, and a government building in charge of ensuring the city and its inhabitants are taken care of.

No matter the catastrophe, there should be people on the scene to come and help out. There always had been in the past. And it only made sense that it should happen now. But then, she realized that she was the only person standing in the midst of rubble. 

In fact, she couldn’t find any other person anywhere.

Having concluded that others may still be stuck beneath dust and debris, she made to dig. Even if she couldn’t do much with just her bare hands. 

She didn’t know for sure if there was anyone under the spot she’d chosen. But it was better than doing nothing. Because if she let herself stop and think, she’d only be left with that feeling of dread that had crept as soon as she realized she was all alone in a city that had crumbled seemingly overnight.

She didn’t think she believed in any deity. But she prayed anyway for survivors, prayed that she wasn’t stuck all alone to fend for herself. 

Unfortunately, her prayers went unanswered as soon as she uncovered someone’s charred remains. The body was burned so badly that she couldn’t even tell the color of its skin, the shape of its eyes or if it had missing limbs before or after whatever disaster befell the city.

She had jumped away as soon as she found the body. And then waited for something bad to happen due to the sheer terror she felt at witnessing what was left of something that once lived and breathed just the day before.

Why she would think something catastrophic would happen just because she felt so very afraid was beyond her. But her body acted on its own, instantly crouching down with her arms around her legs in a fetal position waiting for something as horrible as the sky falling down on her. And feeling as if there was no way to stop what was to come simply because she couldn’t stop how she felt.

But to her surprise, nothing happened. Everything stayed the same. The sun was still shining high above her. What remained of towering buildings were still riddled on the streets. And so were the bodies they hid.

Truth be told, the bigger surprise was how she knew all that she knew, given that she couldn’t even recall her own name, where she came from or what she was doing there.

__________________

Life in a world without other people would have been incredibly lonely and terrifying had she not been so occupied with the business of surviving. After finding the body, she had put the rubble and debris back over it. It was the only thing she could think of in lieu of burying the corpse in a place strewn with cement and concrete. 

By the time she was done, half the day was gone. And she knew she needed to find food and shelter. That kept her busy well into the night as it took time to find a building that was still left standing by whatever destroyed the city.

Something, call it instinct or intuition, told her that she’d find the same scene of death and destruction wherever she went. That she may well be the only person left alive in the planet. She chose not to dwell too deeply on that. Because despite evidence to the contrary, letting herself feel was a bad idea. Again, she couldn’t figure out why she would think that way. But she had nothing else to go on but that. So she let herself be numb. She focused on picking up the pieces of what was left of her life.

Or would it have been more accurate to say that she focused on moving on with her new life considering she didn’t even remember what her old life was really like?

But given that she knew the world before had hospitals, groceries, schools, parks and malls, she was sure it was a fairly safe bet that she had lived her old life under vastly different circumstances than she did now.

As soon as she had scavenged enough supplies and a way to transport them efficiently, she left the city. 

She could have chosen to stay. It was as good a place as any, at least in her opinion. But the place left her feeling far too sad for words.

She wished she remembered why. But then again, if she felt like breaking down and crying because of it, perhaps it was for the best that she never recovered the memories that could unlock the answer to that question.

Choosing to leave the ruined city was objectively not any better or worse than staying. It was only slightly better (for her) because it made her heart beat a little slower and her lungs to relax their accelerated expansion and contraction. 

So as far as she was concerned, staying in the city she originated from (at least as far as she knew) wasn’t an option for her.

Not that the view that greeted her outside the city limits was any better. While no flash of memory came to her, she somehow knew that there should have been rows and rows of trees along the side of the road. Instead, she was greeted by charred husks of trunks. The verdant green color she once expected had been replaced by shades of greys and blacks and sometimes brown.

And that was what broke the dam of her tears.

Contrary to what she expected, the world didn’t end with an outburst of emotion.

Much later, as she made camp under what was now a clear night sky due to the lack of artificial lights from what she suspected was a once vibrant city, she would wonder why she ever thought bottling and/or numbing her emotions was a good idea. And why letting herself feel was somehow a harbinger of disaster. But as she had no ready answer for that and as she was so very tired, she allowed her heavy eyelids to run their course.

She would have cried some more had she not realized that crying made her thirsty. She knew she had to stop it as doing that would only deplete her limited water supply

______________________

And so that was her new life. As soon as she woke up, she would pack her things, scavenge for more supplies, mend whatever needed fixing and then move onto the next village, town or city.

As expected (she still didn’t know why), she had yet to meet another survivor, hear another human voice, feel the cool or warm hand of another human being on her face or her hand that would have assured her that she wasn’t alone.

Sometimes, she would imagine what it would be like had she managed to rescue another survivor that first day she found the world in ruins. Inexplicably, she had no idea what they would talk about or what they would do outside of sourcing for food, water and shelter. 

But she did spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about keeping each other warm at night, having someone just hold her until she was finally able to sleep. She thought of being comfortable and at ease with the mere presence of another person or by the touch of skin against skin.

She knew such comfort was only temporary. But from her current predicament, she judged that to be better than nothing.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she was only taking from the other survivor. She would also be giving a similar form of comfort. And to her that was more important. Because she realized during one particularly cold and sleepless night under the stars that the reason she didn’t want to be alone was because she wanted to be needed.

Perhaps in the world before the apocalypse, she might have gone to a therapist to make sense of things (and probably a neurologist to help her with her amnesia). But as neither of those were close at hand, she had to grudgingly accept that she would probably never know why she wanted what she wanted.

Maybe her memories would come back. Then again, she figured she shouldn’t hold her breath on it. She honestly didn’t know if she wanted to regain what she lost. And if she was being honest with herself, her answer to that question would differ every hour of every day.

But for now, she decided to take it slow. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of time to focus on getting back lost memories when staying alive in what was essentially a dead world was a 24/7 job.

Still, no amount of work or fatigue could keep her from what she desired most (at least as far as she knew). Despite the sheer improbability, she wanted to matter to someone. With the utter lack of options in her general vicinity, she honestly thought that anyone who happened to be alive and breathing would do.

__________________________________

She had long stopped counting the days since her first day in the apocalypse. At some point, time had started to lose its meaning once she realized she was probably the last living soul on earth. 

It didn’t help that food was becoming scarcer. The last tin can she opened revealed food that had long expired. But at that point, she was too hungry to care.

Almost immediately, she regretted her decision.

Though as her body expelled what it deemed as poison, she couldn’t help but think that even if she had gone back in time, she would have still eaten rotten food. 

But as she had no such abilities or had access to a machine that could take her to any point in time, it was certainly a useless thought. Besides, the apocalypse was the only world she had ever truly known.

It would certainly be nice to have easy access to food and not worry about where to find it. Just as it would certainly (or at least she hoped so) ease the pang of loneliness to live alongside other people. 

But what would life be like when it wasn’t a daily fight for survival? Without days filled with scavenging and looking out for the presence of survivors, what would be left of her? 

A part of her was eager to find out. After all, who wouldn’t want an easier life? A life to figure out who she was, what she liked and who she wanted to be. And yet, something inside of her told her that it wasn’t a good idea. That the life she had before was just as or even more painful when she still had a roof over her head, a fireplace and an incredible amount of dining options. That even in a room filled with people, she was as lonely as ever.

She didn’t want to believe that. But something about that rang true to her.

At that point, it wouldn’t be illogical to just lie down and die. What was there to live for? There was no one. And all attempt at survival was most likely just an extension of what was proving to be a tortuous series of experiences that she called her current life.

But she wasn’t a rational soul. So despite what sounded like pretty good arguments to ending her life, she got back up and looked for food. 

She didn’t find it. But she did find a lake. After taking some water, boiling it and storing it away, she finally bathed in what felt like years. The bath didn’t technically solve her problems. But it did make her feel a lot better.

_____________________________

She had never once thought of naming herself. After all, a name was what other people would have called her when all she needed to call herself was either “I,” “myself,” or “me.”

That all changed when she saw a bald mannequin without an arm and a lower half as she was in the midst of scavenging.

She should have wondered why it was on a cart filled with various knickknacks and a couple of books. That should have clued her into the fact that there was a survivor somewhere in the vicinity.

But having lived years without a single soul, with only her imagination for company, she had stopped hoping to see another person living in the same planet at the same time she was. 

All she thought of as she neared the mannequin was how wonderful it was to have it. Over the years she had made imaginary companions out of rocks and/or bags of dirt. But those never felt real enough to her.

The mannequin at least looked humanoid and was at least wearing human clothes.  
Most of all, the mannequin had a kind and gentle smile. So she decided that she had to have it.

It was light and cool to the touch, so easy to transport back to her camp. Logically, she should look for food first, then come back and get the mannequin. It wasn’t as if the mannequin was going anywhere.

But this was the first time in a long time she encountered anything this close to the human form and a kind, gentle face. So in her mind, having company took precedence over daily sustenance.

Enough time had passed since the initial days of the apocalypse. Plants started growing again. And the forest started showing a verdant green color again. 

In the back of her mind, she did wonder what a mannequin was doing in the middle of a forest. But she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

She decided to bring the mannequin on her hunt for berries and mushrooms. All throughout her stroll she couldn’t help running her hand over the mannequin’s face and smiling at her stroke of luck.

At least she’d now have something to hold onto as she slept. She knew the mannequin wasn’t a real person. But it was certainly something. And something was a lot better than nothing.

She was deep in her reverie of what she hoped would be happier days when she got the shock of her life at being tackled to the ground. Again, no bolt of lightning came from the sheer surprise of the whole experience and the pain of hitting the ground in less than a second. 

Everything happened so fast that she barely had time to register that there was another living person wrestling with her for access to the mannequin.   
Under normal circumstances, she would have been jumping for joy at the realization that she wasn’t alone. But something told her this stranger wanted her mannequin. And she couldn’t let him have it.

So what followed was a long struggle while one made sure the mannequin was just out of the other’s reach.

Unfortunately, this resulted in the mannequin being pushed over the nearby ravine. The impact it made on the rocks broke it into pieces which were then carried away by a fast running stream.

“NOOO!”

The sound the stranger made was a mix of horror and heartbreak. Only then did she realize that the mannequin originally belonged to him. She had inadvertently stolen his possession. And now, she had just made sure he’d never recover it. At least not in the shape she found it.

_________________________________

For a brief moment of madness, Five wanted to destroy everything he could get his hands on and give up. Seeing what basically amounted to Dolores’ death certainly did that to him. But he didn’t have that luxury. He had a mission. And more than anything, even Dolores, his mission took precedence.

Arriving in the apocalypse and finding himself stuck there was the worst day of his life. So much so that he had even resorted to agreeing with his adoptive father’s assessment. He wasn’t ready for time travel. His intellect which he had long-prized and valued as well as his abilities which had gotten him out of more than one dangerous scrape had been no match for the predicament he had found himself in. And as much as he would have wanted to think that his siblings were useless, that they would have died had they been in his place, he couldn’t help but feel that things would have been better had any one of them been there with him.

Not that he would wish the hard life of surviving the end of the world on any of them. But to have any of them with him would have made his life after his fateful time jump more bearable.

Growing up in a household that treated its children more like soldiers, Five had already been equipped to survive the harshest of conditions. Whether it was a dry, arid desert or a cold, winter wasteland.

The problem was that he had been trained as part of a team. Prior to finding himself in the year 2019, he had never truly been alone in his life. If he wasn’t in class with his siblings or training for the next mission under the aegis of the Umbrella Academy, he was usually in his room working on calculations for his jumps with his siblings no further than a few feet away. Then there were the occasional times Vanya would let him listen to her performance.

He should have listened to her when she told him it wasn’t a good idea to time jump. And to be fair, he almost took her advice. But as usual, his pride got the better of him.

So it was that Five soon realized that it wasn’t the deprivation of food, water or shelter that got to him. Neither was it the elements or the now inhospitable terrain of life after the apocalypse.

It was the absolute despair of loneliness that threatened to bring him over the edge and made it so very tempting to put a quick end to what promised to be a long, arduous and possibly futile life.

On the one hand, having no one else left alive left him free to collect resources to his heart’s content without worrying about any other survivor trying to steal from him or willing to kill him just to get to what he had. In short, he didn’t have to share whatever remained. And while he himself knew that it was a cold, heartless way of looking at apocalyptic survival, Five couldn’t deny that he needed to survive long enough to figure out how to get back in time and stop this disaster from happening in the first place.

Having a power that could affect billions of lives meant that he didn’t have the luxury to think about the needs of an individual.

Giving in to a fleeting sentiment would only endanger his efforts to get back and prevent this cataclysm from ever happening. 

The first few days into the apocalypse actually had him a little concerned about the possible descent into anarchy and barbarism that followed after the fall of any reliable socio-political structure. Not that he was afraid of anyone coming at him with firearms or makeshift weapons designed to maim or make him bleed. More that he didn’t care to have to lose much needed sleep having to keep a constant lookout for possible thieves and thugs.

Five did wonder though if he would truly have it in him to deny others food should they decide to come to him, begging for help. But he ground that thought down with his conviction. Five knew and believed in the concept of the greater good. In service to that, he could and would turn any possible survivor away. Even if it meant certain death for whoever he left by the wayside.

But what if it was Vanya who came up to him?

Five didn’t have a definitive answer to that either way. For as long as he could remember, Five had always made a point to look out for Vanya. The house they grew up in was more a boarding school than an actual family home. And it had become increasingly clear that Vanya was in the unenviable position of being the odd one out.

None of their siblings went out of their way to torment her. But other than him, their other siblings didn’t make much time to make her feel welcome in her own house either.

Vanya would probably be waiting for him to come home. Five had worried over what her reaction would be once she realized that he hadn’t come back. Because he was sure she would be devastated. Out of everyone in the house, she was the one who needed him most. 

For some reason, Dad made a point of leaving her out of training even though she would have benefited from at least some defensive moves. Vanya might not have been extraordinary in the way Dad defined it. But she was a part of the Umbrella Academy whether Reginald Hargreeves chose to admit it or not.

Five knew that they had already made enemies. Foiling robberies, assassination attempts and stepping on someone’s political ambitions all while permanently dispatching Academy foes would do that. And it was highly unlikely that the old man would discontinue Academy missions just because of his disappearance. That meant that anyone who had issues with the Umbrella Academy could very likely look at Vanya and see a weakness to be exploited. 

That’s what he would do had he been in his enemies’ shoes.

The thought of someone laying their hands on Vanya simultaneously put a chill down his spine and fresh wave of anger in his chest. Five was the only one looking out for her in that house. And he could only hope that the old man had at least made some measures to ensure Vanya’s safety. But given Dad’s general disregard for Vanya, Five wasn’t willing to bet his life on it.

But there came a time when he decided to put it out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it. And replaying the same worries would only distract him. It didn’t stop him from hoping that he was wrong of his assessment of Dad and the Academy, for Vanya’s sake.

In the end, the question of Vanya somehow surviving the apocalypse became a moot point as soon as he discovered their other siblings’ bodies in the ruins of what he remembered was the Icarus Theater. 

It wasn’t wrong to say that Five had a high opinion of himself. He did, in fact, think believe himself better than his siblings. Reginald may have ranked each sibling. But with Luther, who only knew how to follow orders as Number One and Klaus who didn’t even have any offensive or defensive use for his abilities ranked above Five as Number Four, it quickly dawned on Five that the rankings were meaningless. And that Reginald, in ranking him as Number Five, was not as infallible and all-knowing as he’d like his adopted children to believe.

It meant nothing that Luther was Number One. To Five’s shame, he did once think he deserved to be Number One. But since Reginald Hargreeves clearly had a subjective basis for his rankings, Five had long outgrown the notion of moving up the ranks. It also made Five the sibling most willing to accept that just because Vanya was Number Seven didn’t mean she was worthless.

Dad’s reasons were his own. And since it did not align with Five’s more logical rationale, Five was happy to disregard it.

But for all of Five’s intellect and self-reliance, even he had to acknowledge that the old man was no fool. Reginald Hargreeves achieved many amazing things in his life. A lot genuinely impressed even Five. And the old man’s training regimen did indeed help the siblings (sans Vanya who didn’t have abilities) achieve a level of control and improvement in the manipulation of said powers.

Five may think himself better than his siblings. But even he had to admit that his siblings (even Klaus who had been slacking off of training long before he time jumped) were hard to kill. Whatever or whoever ended their lives in what appeared to be a blink of an eye was a force to be reckoned with.

Which left no doubt in his mind that Vanya was probably dead. 

A part of him hoped that he could find her to at least give her a proper burial. Since it was a theater, Vanya could have also been buried beneath the rubble. She loved music. She could have been part of the audience or one of the performers. 

But he was deluding himself with his foolish hope. Other than his siblings who had extraordinary abilities, all other bodies were completely charred and unrecognizable.

He very well could have encountered Vanya and not known it. Or she could have been an unrecognizable, burned corpse somewhere else. 

When he didn’t find Ben’s body, he fell into an irrational urge to scream his brother’s name. An urge he quickly indulged. Disappointingly, no one answered back.

Five soon found out that Ben died long before the apocalypse. 

And it was then that it truly hit Five. The momentary feeling of doubt and utter despair. How was he going to live long enough to get back in time? There may very well be the likelihood that he never figured out the solution to travel back home. And without anyone there with him, Five could very well just decide to end things in the throes of some form of insanity. Because as much as he hated to admit it, he needed someone. Anyone. 

Five could handle starvation, sleeplessness, tornadoes, earthquakes and possible hostiles out to get him.   
But the thought of having no one to converse with, to sling insults at, to listen to and vice versa made him want to lie down, sleep and never wake up. Five may have grown up knowing the value of the endgame, the mission, the goal to which one should strive for.

But he was only human. The mission to save the world could only get him going so far. He needed someone to keep him from following the impulse to just give up and end things.

Five didn’t know if it was providence or his own subconscious kicking in to keep him alive. But that was pretty much how Dolores (who objectively was nothing more than half of a bald, one-armed mannequin) came to have a permanent place in his life.

Logically, he knew that Dolores’ voice and words of advice and comfort were nothing more than what his mind told himself. He knew full well that Dolores was nothing more than a product of his imagination. 

But he was in a time and place where companionship wasn’t within easy reach. So for years, Dolores was the only one he talked to and actively cared about. Most of the time, he would talk to her about the mission, about going back and finding out who caused the apocalypse. She would be exasperated at having to hear the same thing all over again. But that was all Five wanted to talk about so she was forced to listen.

He had no clue on what caused the apocalypse. All Five had to go on was a prosthetic eye that Luther managed to hold onto even in death.

All records were destroyed by the mere fact that all the buildings that housed possible records were burned and reduced to rubble. So Five had no choice but to focus his attention on the business of going back in time. Only after a successful attempt could he really get into finding out the owner of the eye.

Five wasn’t a fan of complicated strategies. So his game plan was kept short and concise. Find the cause of the apocalypse and then kill it before it becomes a problem.

It was just too bad that the time he could have used to get one step closer to jumping back in time had to be divided with the need to eat, drink, defecate, urinate, cleanse and sleep. Not to mention the fact that having limited resources meant that it kept running out. Thus he had to find ever new and creative ways to replace his stock.

Which lead him to the very moment when he lost Dolores.

Perhaps he had been too complacent. After all, he assumed (incorrectly) that there were no survivors. So he felt secure in leaving Dolores all by herself.

To his shock (and really he only had himself to blame), he came back to his camp to find Dolores gone. Five was grateful that his Academy training also involved tracking. And it didn’t take long to find the thief.

In hindsight, Five probably shouldn’t have tackled her to the ground. Or given her the chance to struggle. But things went downhill fast. Dolores ended up in pieces as she hit the rocky walls of the gorge and was pretty much flushed like sewage down a running stream.

For a moment, it didn’t matter that a living human was within arm’s reach. Dolores had been a faithful companion that had kept him sane (or as sane as he could be in the desolate landscape that was the end of the world). She kept him focused on getting back to his family. And he knew despite the logical part of his brain saying otherwise, that he wouldn’t have gotten this far without her.

So despite his logical side telling him to question this girl- No. From the feel of her curves, she was a woman. A diminutive one. But a woman nonetheless. Despite knowing that it made sense to question her about what happened years ago on the year 2019, Five gave into his more primal nature. A nature that had every intention of taking his hurt and anger out of the person responsible for separating him from Dolores.

___________________________________

The stranger had dragged her onto her feet with a bruising grip. And it left no doubt in her mind that he intended to hurt her. It was obvious that the stranger saw the mannequin as a real person. Perhaps, the only real friend he had left in this world.

And she caused him to lose that friend.

_I wish someone cared about me that way._

The fleeting thought was natural. She had spent years all alone. But she couldn’t help but sense that it came from somewhere deep inside her and from a past life she could no longer remember.

She had no chance to dwell on it as the stranger dragged her away from the ravine and into the wooded area of the forest.

“I’m sorry! I’ll pay for the damages!”

It then occurred to her that she wasn’t living in the world before where most restitution came in the form of money.

“With what?!”

The man seethed as he kept an even tighter hold of her arm. The look in his eyes told her that he wanted to hurt her badly.

She was struck with fear. And then, she braced herself for something bad to happen. A forest fire, perhaps? Or a storm? Or an avalanche? 

Even now, years later, she still couldn’t explain why high spikes in emotion immediately made her think of the end of the world. But for the moment, it put her current predicament into perspective.

And she was no longer afraid.

For the life of her, she didn’t know why she did what she did next. Perhaps it was something in her forgotten past that her body still remembered. Or maybe it was just some primal instinct that was innate in every living being.

He was still holding her left arm. So she used her right arm to tear off her clothes (or more accurately, what remained of her clothes. It had been some time since she found material durable enough to last in the apocalypse).

“What are you doing?!”

The stranger’s anger had all at once turned into shock. But once she bared a breast to him, she detected a hint of lust in his eyes. Seemingly all at once, she felt electrified that she could cause someone’s rage to turn into desire. It felt incredible to be wanted.

The stranger had finally let her go and took a step back, as if he was afraid of her or rather, the effect she had on him. But he made no further steps away from her, his eyes seemingly entranced by the display on her chest. In passing, she noted that his tight hold would leave bruises. But she didn’t really care about that. She used the chance to take off the rest of her clothes and then her shoes. 

So there she was. Naked and barefoot. And making her way towards him. 

He was too transfixed, eyeing her up and down from head to toe. Clearly akin to a starving man looking at a feast.

It took no time at all to reach him. To place her hands on his shoulders, go up on her tiptoes and stare him straight in the eyes.

She loved the particular shade of green on his eyes. But then, she realized she was being rude. She had yet to answer him. 

And all at once, she wondered what the hell she was doing. In the world before, her current actions would be considered sordid, illegal, and immoral.

She should stop. She knew she should. 

But on the other hand, wasn’t this what she’s wanted for a long time? The chance to hold someone and for someone, anyone to hold her. Here was a living, breathing human being at long last, after years of thinking there was no possibility of finding any other survivors. If she stopped now and he decided not to give in to what she knew he wanted, she would regret it.

So she gave him a reply.

“P-Paying you back for the damage I’ve caused. I-If you’d let me?”

The delivery wasn’t as smooth as she would have wanted. But at least she managed to spit it out.

On what seemed at once like an eternity and a second, the man looked her in the eyes as if he had the ability to bore into her soul. For a brief time, she worried that he would refuse.

But then, he gave a curt nod. And she crushed her lips to his.

__________________

The woman must have done this before. But how was Five to know? He had never done this before. Never had the opportunity to. Sure he had taken himself in hand a couple of times (or more than that if he was being honest) in the past. But that was different.

What this woman was doing was miles away from what he was used to. 

He let her into his mouth. Let her tongue stroke his as he lifted her up and had her legs wrapped around his waist.

Thirteen-year old Five would have found it disgusting. Swapping spit with a stranger just sounded so unsanitary. 

Then again, he was no longer that boy. By now, he had lived most of his life in less than ideal or sanitary conditions.

Not one to be passive, he took the initiative to invite himself into her mouth, making sure to use her technique against her, going so far as to touch the roof of her mouth. The sounds she made only excited him further and he felt his pants getting tighter.

From her current position, he knew she could feel it too.

They were both gasping for breath as soon as they broke contact. But she wasn’t tired. In one swift motion, she unhooked her legs and knelt in front of him while cupping him through his pants.

She took barely a few seconds to look him in the eyes. But from that brief meeting of gazes, Five could tell her pupils were dilated.

He felt the bulge in his pants grow bigger. And she took it as a sign to undo his pants and take his cock into her warm hand.

At first, Five thought she’d tug and pull like he did when the urge took him. And to a certain extent she did. But then, she unsealed rosebud lips to take the head into her even warmer mouth and sucked.

If all reason and logic hadn’t left him then, it did so now.

All that was left was the terrible need to be deeper inside that mouth that gave him one of the greatest pleasures of his shitty life. But he feared that if he did, it would be all over.

He wasn’t done with her. And for what she did to Dolores, one quick fuck wouldn’t be enough to make them even.

With great control, he managed to disengage from her delicious mouth.

The woman was clearly at a loss for what to do next. Good. She shouldn’t be in charge here. It shouldn’t be about what she wanted.

“Get on all fours.”

Five was proud that his voice projected being in control. He had feared it would have somehow sounded squeaky or hoarse.

Reginald Hargreeves kept stables outside the city. For some reason, the old man thought Five and his siblings needed horseback-riding lessons. The others, particularly Allison, enjoyed it thinking of horses as adorable and majestic. Five only thought them to be a waste of space and didn’t bother to pay much attention to the lessons except the basics so as to not lag behind.

The only memorable thing to come out of the stables was the time he witnessed a stallion mounting a mare. Given that Reginald Hargreeves strictly controlled their access to television, news and books, that was the one and only “porn” he had unintentionally watched. 

She was so tiny that he could cover her whole body. For some reason, that pleased him. Just as it pleased him to discover her wet. And hot. And tight.

The way her walls clamped down around him was better than any fist. Her moans of pleasure as she went in and out of her were better than anything he had ever heard in a long time.

All the while, the thought that started as soon as she revealed what she hid underneath her clothes had cemented in his mind. He was going to keep her. There was no way he would allow her to leave.

She still had a debt to repay. 

Besides, the feeling of her soft, warm flesh welcoming and trying to keep him in, the feel of her hands and lips on his body made him come alive again. To her, she was paying for damages inflicted upon him. But all she really did was get him hooked on a drug he had developed an addiction to.

Five needed her close at hand whenever the urge took far to strong a hold on him. And he didn’t want to risk losing her. He’d go mad without this.

Five would make it worth her while. From now on, she didn’t need to find food, shelter, water, or clothes. He’d provide everything she could need. All he wanted was for her to be ready when he needed her.

_____________________

The man didn’t give her much of a choice. She had to leave her own bag of supplies behind to go wherever he wanted to go.

Not that she would have wanted to leave him. Or be without him now that she found him.

After he had her on all fours, she was able to get on top of him. He looked surprised at first. But he voiced no objection as soon as she lowered herself onto him, She sensed that he held a fascination for her breasts, particularly in the way they moved as she made her way up and down his cock, making sure to gyrate as she reached the base.

For some reason, he suddenly laughed out loud when she told him that she was riding him. He never did explain what joke was playing on his head. But as soon as they both put their clothes back on, he had her get on his cart.

She was confused at first. But decided to go along until she realized she was getting further and further away from her store of food and clothes.

When she made a sound of protest, he told her matter-of-factly that she was far from done in paying him back for damages. He would get her whatever she needed as long as she continued to “pay him back.”

She tried to explain that she needed her stuff. That it was unfair to not let her take them

But then, he countered with how she took Dolores from him with no warning.

He named his mannequin Dolores. A part of her was shocked though in hindsight, it was only natural. To him, Dolores was real. And she essentially killed his friend.

She fell silent after that. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable silence. But as she had lived with silence for as long as she could remember, she was able to bear it.

The man did not.

“You can call me Five. And before you say anything, that really is my name. What’s yours?”

Finally, she burst into tears. She had nothing. It finally hit home that she spent years without a proper name. It was ok when she was all by herself.

But now that she was in someone’s company, she felt so terribly lacking. And lower than a mannequin who at least had a name and someone’s regard.

“Stop that! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Yes, there was definitely something wrong with her. And that thought only made her cry harder. All Number Five could do was wait her out.

When she finally managed to control herself, she had explained that she didn’t remember. She didn’t even know who she was before the apocalypse.

She didn’t think she was imagining things when she saw what appeared to be pity in his eyes, which was then replaced by a calculating look.

“All the better then. You’ll be Dolores from now on.”

___________________________________

Dolores. Dolores. Dolores.

She had tried repeating the name in her head. She wondered if Dolores was, by some stroke of coincidence, her actual name. But her gut told her it wasn’t.

Still, it was a name. And it was now hers.

She now had more than she did before. Sure, she was forced to abandon her things. But Five soon replaced them.

He even installed a mattress on an even bigger cart, for them to sleep in and for him to have sex with her on though they didn’t necessarily limit their sexual activity on the mattress. Just that, most of the time, they’d start and end their day with sex. 

Five was busy most of the day. If he wasn’t looking for food, he was working on his equations that he insisted he needed absolute silence to figure out. So she either slept or walked around the perimeter when he was doing that. Dolores’ job was to be the previous Dolores. Of course, she was free to walk and exercise. As long as she kept noise to a minimum.

Five had told Dolores that the calculation was for going back in time. And it was important. She initially didn’t believe him and thought that years in isolation with only a mannequin for company really affected him. But then he disappeared, only to reappear a few meters away.

Number Five had powers. And he believed that he could someday time travel, take her with him and then stop the end of the world.

Dolores took him at his word. But the thought of going to the past left her uneasy. Something about it didn’t sit well with her. But she chose to ignore it. Life with Five was by no means perfect or easy. But she needed him. She didn’t want to be left alone again. And if he was willing to take her with him, there was only one choice left for her.

She knew he did important work. So one day, she decided to help out. She was bored. And she wanted to be of more use.

While he was working on his numbers, she decided to look for food. It was unfortunate how most of their day revolved around what they could consume. She knew that the world before had food ready at hand and it freed people to pursue other things like music and what Five was doing.

She wondered what her life was really like before the apocalypse. But not for the first time, she decided to discontinue that thought. She had to find them something to eat.

To her joy, Dolores was able to find _something_ , for the lack of a better term. Because at this point in the apocalypse, food was now classified as anything you can swallow without dying. But by the time she got back to camp, Five was livid with her. So much so that Five, who was deeply pragmatic and had been known to eat cockroaches rather than killing them outright, threw her haul to the fire. And even prevented her from recovering it.

That was followed by a lecture on how her only function in this “partnership” was to be nearby and ready when he needed her. 

Dolores wanted to find a hole and bury herself in it. She felt hot in the face.

Five did in fact make it clear that there was only one thing he needed her for. And she couldn’t even be there when he did. 

She felt so useless. 

Five went for a walk after what seemed like an eternity-long lecture where he talked non-stop and she just listened and tried to hold her tears back.

Dolores cried herself to sleep that night. Only to be woken up by the feel of hands on her thighs and the puff of warm breath on her core. She opened her eyes in alarm as she felt something wet and warm. 

It took her a few seconds to register that it was a tongue. 

Five’s head was between her legs as he lapped up the wetness she could feel seeping from her. 

“Five, what are you- _Oh!_ ”

Dolores found that her arms couldn’t hold her up anymore. He had never done this before. Dolores thought he just found it disgusting. But there he was, preventing even a single drop to make its way past him.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if this was his way of saying sorry. Dolores knew Five had no idea how to comfort a crying girl. And he wasn’t one to say sorry.

So perhaps this was how he showed it.

Five’s lips made a slow, tortuous journey upwards taking time to circle her navel and dip his tongue in her belly button. He showed no patience in undressing her, choosing to rip her shirt, sending buttons flying to reveal her breasts, caressing, licking and sucking at one and then the other.

When he joined his lips to hers and tangled tongues and limbs together, Dolores could taste herself on him. And she felt even more wetness pool between her legs, if that was possible. It soon became evident that she wasn’t the only one affected as she felt his hardness. 

Dolores wanted him inside her. So she reached out to touch him and guide him to her entrance, making sure to spread her legs as wide as she could.

But Five had other ideas. He had her legs on his buttocks, her legs in what seemed like a frog stance and his whole upper body in contact with hers. It felt so amazing. His cock inside her and his chest rubbing against hers. It sent her over the edge.

The pleasure would have been complete had he not called out her name.

Dolores.

It was her name. But that wasn’t right. It was simply the name he called her.

She wanted to believe she was who Five thought about as he spent himself inside her. But who was she kidding?

She waited until he was asleep to freely let a sob slip from her lips.

__________________

Dolores was crying again. She thought he was asleep. But he simply wanted to know if he had finally stopped her unhappiness. This wasn’t the first time she cried after sex, particularly after she thought he had passed out. 

There had also come a point when Five realized that he saw her cry more than she smiled. But wasn’t that just to be expected? He was essentially forcing her into what amounted to sexual slavery.

The only thing that should have surprised him was the endless amount of shame and guilt that erupted when he saw her tears. Apparently, his early indignation which “justified” his treatment of her was no longer enough to stem the tide of regret over his actions.

But it wasn’t enough to make him stop. If he were a decent person, he’d let her go wherever she wanted. Let her try to survive on her own again.

But every chance she showed her independence, Five felt fear. Fear that she’d leave him. At least with the original Dolores, he didn’t have to think about being abandoned. But having a real life woman as a companion was a whole other story.

It made him weak and vulnerable. He didn’t know what he would do if she suddenly disappeared from his life.

And more than anything, he couldn’t stand that. 

For some time, he tried to numb the guilt and the fear by being angry. After all, it was all her fault he needed her company.

But after spending months with her, he knew that even if the original Dolores somehow came back in one piece, Five wouldn’t have traded his current one for the mannequin. Even though the mannequin was the far safer choice, he still preferred someone who would truly smile at him for real. Without his mind having to delude himself into believing a piece of fiction.

So he resorted to keeping his current Dolores dependent on him, making it virtually impossible for her to leave him. Dulling her scavenging skills. Having her live a life of relative leisure. He already found books in the library he thought would prove to distract her from going off again. 

Hopefully she would have to come back to him should she want to keep living, even if she did one day try to leave.

He was a horrible human being.

Because deep down, even if he knew Dolores was suffering, he would never let her go. He was already so attached to her that even if he did manage to get back in time to stop the apocalypse, he still planned to hold onto her.

At this point, not even Vanya could get him to let Dolores go. Not now. Not ever.

By now, he had already figured out how to go back in time. All he needed to do was think of a way for Dolores to stay essentially chained to him even in a time and place where survival was a lot easier. Once he did that, they were ready to go.


End file.
